In Seattle, the World Still Turns, a Beacon in Memory of a Lost Newspaper

Journalists from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, David McCumber, left, and Michael Lewis, right, with the author and the 30-foot neon globe that sits atop the newspaper's building.Credit
Monica Almeida/The New York Times

SEATTLE — A visitor passing through Seattle last week made an impertinent request. He called someone at The Post-Intelligencer to ask whether he could, if at all possible, visit the 30-foot neon globe that sits atop the newspaper’s waterfront building. He couldn’t really explain the need.

The request might have seemed especially rude, given that those employed by The Post-Intelligencer were living hour to hour, waiting for a call from the Hearst Corporation, its owner in New York, about what day would be its last as a printed entity. That call came Monday: A daily Seattle tradition that began in 1863 will end Tuesday, March 17, 2009.

But back last week, back when the newspaper could at least revel in another day passed, another edition published, the good people at The Post-Intelligencer understood the well-intentioned desire behind the request.

We understand. Come on over.

In Seattle, everyone knows what you mean when you say the Globe. For years, it has announced to the Pacific Northwest that in a newsroom below, people are preparing to present on broad sheets of paper an account and analysis of the day’s events, as well as:

For some, the P-I Globe is the finest landmark in Seattle, surpassing even the Space Needle. When aglow at night, it seems to float upon the cityscape, the continents highlighted in green against the dark blue, the motto — “It’s in the P-I” — rotating in red letters five and eight feet high. A continuance is conveyed.

The visitor pulled up to the newspaper building in early evening to find television news trucks parked outside, waiting to capture tearful and angry reactions should the fateful word from New York arrive before the six o’clock broadcast. There but for the grace of God, thought the visitor.

Mike Lewis, a gifted P-I columnist, led the way to the subdued newsroom to meet the managing editor, David McCumber. Tall and slightly, appropriately, rumpled, Mr. McCumber said he was glad for the call because he needed to see the Globe himself, at least one more time.

Photo

The neon globe on the Seattle Post-Intelligencer building.Credit
Monica Almeida/The New York Times

Soon they were on the roof, the Puget Sound endless before them, ferries nudging past, Mount Rainier peeking from distant clouds. None seemed as beautiful, though, as the turning, rusting sphere a few feet away.

“There’s a hole in New Zealand,” Mr. McCumber said.

Sixty years ago, the newspaper held a contest, asking readers to come up with a new symbol for The Post-Intelligencer. The result: a massive, intricate globe made of rivets and steel and topped by a majestic eagle, its wings raised as if about to take flight.

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What do newspaper people do while standing beside the icon for a newspaper about to die? Three newspaper people who, together, have spent at least 85 years in a culture now in freefall? They tell newspaper stories, of course.

A door into the Globe was open, so the three men — and a photographer — climbed into the belly of the sphere to peer through some netting and out to a Seattle at sunset. The world around them turned, grinding and screeching, as if in need of oil.

Later, in a newsroom office overlooking the golden horizon, more newspaper stories were told, as if their telling could delay the death of The Post-Intelligencer, like some kind of journalistic filibuster. Mr. McCumber plopped a bound book of old editions of the P-I on his table and slowly flipped through 1934.

Here was a story about the goings-on of the heiress Doris Duke. Here was a paragraph of quips from Will Rogers. Here was an account of an accused cop killer’s trial. Here were Maggie and Jiggs, and Barney Google, and, yes, Blondie.

The Globe’s long-term fate is unclear: for now, it will remain where it sits, spinning. In the end, of course, the Globe is only an inanimate object; it doesn’t live and breathe, say, the way a newspaper does.

It was time to go; employees of The Seattle Post-Intelligencer had a wake to prepare for. Goodbyes and good lucks were exchanged, with no mention of the dimming cheap metaphor now gone from the horizon.